The 2017 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[Dazrin]

If that's the way you prefer to record your stats, just post a link here to those. There's no reason you need to record things here.

[RobertoOG]

The year is ending and I'm only one book away from my 52 books goal, I'm happy because it seems I'm gonna make it.

Not only that, I've also put stars to each one and recorded their titles and authors on this forum and goodreads.

I fell short on one of my subgoals (reading bolivian authors, just 1/6) but achieved the other goal (read Asimov's Fundation series).

Anyway I'm quite happy

[Wearever]

Just finished my 52 books read goal. I counted 18 nonfiction, which was my challenge for 2017. Now I'll need to set a new challenge for 2018.

[Dazrin]

Well, I goofed today and forgot to bring my Kindle with me which means that there is almost no chance of me finishing my current book, Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, and therefore I might as well update my list post with my latest stats.

By the numbers this was a great reading year for me, almost 40% more pages read than my average going into this year. Qualitatively? I read some wonderful books but I don't think my percentage of great vs just good was as high and my average rating went down a bit.

[bfisher]

Up until the autumn, I was keeping up with my reading goal, which was to read the picks of both book clubs. I do feel that I read some very rewarding books that I might not have otherwise read. None of the book club picks were disappointing.

I plan to follow the same method this year.

[astrangerhere]

My original goals (which were updated a few times) were as follows:

• Read 60 books
• Read more non-American authors than American
• Read more outside my normal genres

Where I ended up:

• Read 104 Books
• Read 57 Short Stories
• Read 49% American authors and 51% everywhere else
• I read some horror, fantasy, and popular fiction this year, which I hardly ever read. My nonfiction intake was a good bit better as well.

I have never done a gender goal, but after discovering that 61% of my authors were male, that has to change. Geeky charts attached.

[Dngrsone]

I am not going to meet my goal for this year... too much going on. I changed employers, homes, etc. We will see what else changes next year.

[orlok]

My final tally:

88 books read (75 target)

36 out of 40 genre reads (so a fail, compared to last year)

209 points out of a possible 300 for the GR "All Your Books Are Belong To Us" challenge. I don't consider this a fail as I was never going to read every category; it was just fun to take part.

[pdurrant]

I'm not going to finish another book today, so I can announce that I've failed to meet my target by 51 books. Instead of reducing my TBR by 47 books, it's increased by 4.

On the other hand, it's better than last year, despite the loss of lots of reading time in the second third of the year.

My goal for next year is more modest: Just to reduce my TBR.

[PurpleStar]

I did finish another book so that makes 31 for the year. Lowest total ever? Maybe. I will try to do better next year.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

I did finish another book so that makes 31 for the year. Lowest total ever? Maybe. I will try to do better next year.

No worries if it is...

After one more short, my total will be 45 stories..the thing is the last 25 or so have all been short stories, so my actual total is much lower.

[CRussel]

Well, I finished the year with most of my goals well met. I read (or abandoned) 164 books this year, and I managed to buy only 128, in theory reducing my TBR by 36 books. A good number of those books read were re-reads, however, so the actual TBR reduction was less. But the re-reads did help with keeping costs down with an average cost per book read of $3.27 USD. Quite acceptable for me, though I know others here do even better. I'm looking forward to 2018 where I would really like to keep the costs down even further (can I break $3/book?), but I'm still pleased with how this year turned out.

[drjd]

The year 2017 is over. I read total 83 books this year, and thus lost by 17 of my annual target of 100 books. Shame on me! Only encouraging factor of the year was, I bought only 6 ebooks and collected 5 freebies! Much controlled than earlier years.

My TBR has been reduced to TBR - 889 Ebooks and 18 Pbooks, compared to my stock of 969 Ebooks and 21 Pbooks in the beginning of 2017. As I am aware of the forthcoming shortage of reading time in next few months, I'll have to reduce my target of 2018 to around 80 books.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by drjd

The year 2017 is over. I read total 83 books this year, and thus lost by 17 of my annual target of 100 books. Shame on me! Only encouraging factor of the year was, I bought only 6 ebooks and collected 5 freebies! Much controlled than earlier years.

Many congratulations on your reduced TBR!

[drjd]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Many congratulations on your reduced TBR!

Thanks, GM, but I seriously am worried about the still huge pile which needs another 8 years to sweep away. Either I have to devote more time to reading, which apparently does not seem to happen, or I may have to prune down the list again ruthlessly to make my life more comfortable. Painful, either way.

Spoiler:

Additionally, I can not prevent the authors writing more tempting books which would eventually add up in my TBR in the years to come!